Apples and Football and Shots, Oh My!

Hello Friends!

After a pretty long girls’ day last month on the Three Rivers Wine Trail, Heidi planned a relatively relaxing September girls day perfect to kickoff all the wonders of the fall season. Is there anything better than fruit pickin’ and football watchin’ with your besties? I think not!

We started girls’ day apple picking at Lynd Fruit Farm in Pataskala. We arrived right when they opened around 10 AM and found they were already extremely busy, but that didn’t matter – we were in the orchard in no time at all!

I was completely dumbfounded to hear that Christine had never been apple picking before. She was in complete awe of the blossoming orchard, the varying sizes of trees and saplings and the variety of apples available. Throughout the car ride in the orchard, she was cooing and oohing and aahing – like a kid in a candy store. A Teeny in the apple orchard, methinks 🙂 I see another visit with her grandbaby in the near future.

And then there was Heidi with her impromptu apple picking song! I mean, what in the actual hell? See video below for that lovely moment 🙂

Lynd makes it remarkably easy! Follow along the gravel road, round the winding turns, through the bountiful orchard. Staff are on hand to greet you in your car and hand you a bag for your apples. – $25 gets you 10 pounds and $35 gets you 20 pounds. You don’t pay until the end, though, so no need to have your money ready yet!

Grab your bag, find a spot to park and head into the orchard. The apples themselves were enormous. I’m not joking here – they were frickin’ massive! The girls were chowing down while we were picking apples and Heidi looked like a toddler with the tons of juice running down her face! You simply can’t buy apples like that in the grocery store.

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Meanwhile, I was snapping pics and coming up with all sorts of apple concoctions that I wanted to make if I had any left once I got home – my boys do like apples! Apple crisp and apple pie and apple dumplings – thank you, very much. Be sure to check the blog soon to see what goodies I decided to make. How about you? What’s your go-to apple recipe?

We hit the farm during Honeycrisp season – Teeny’s favorite apple. Check out Lynd’s website, though, as they list the pick dates for each variety of apple, so you’ll know just when to go to snag your favorites!

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Apple picking doesn’t really take too long and we weren’t at the field any longer than about 45 minutes, but we could have shortened that significantly had I’d not been snapping pics and directing the girls into all sorts of crazy poses! I know I annoy the hell out of them with this – but someday they’ll thank me for the memories I’ve captured.

How about ya’ll? Where’s your favorite apple picking spot? What else do you like to pick?

After our bags were stuffed full of apples, we stopped by the Lynd Farm Market and perused all of the yummy goodies. We all snagged some tasty nosh – apple cider, hand pies, homemade salsa, jam, OSU pasta and assorted other goodies. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend you check them out. The market is great for fresh produce and homemade jams & salsas.

After the market, we headed back to Heidi’s for the noon OSU-Oregon game. I’m probably the craziest and I’m definitely the loudest of the Quite Simply Us Buckeye gals, so I parked myself in front of the TV, while Christine made green tea shots for everyone. As an aside – they weren’t actually shots – she made solo cups full of these nummy concoctions. After downing two of them, I was slightly sloshed. We snacked on hummus & pita bites and munchies during the game.

For your next gathering, or if you’re just hanging out at home, give the Green Tea Shots a try! They’re kind of fabulous. Note – the recipe below makes shots – not solo cups full like Christine does 🙂 Girl’s a lush 🙂

Heidi’s momma stopped by for a little visit with the Quite Simply Us gals, too, and got into some pretty in depth adult conversations with Christine. As the girls watched the game, and I screamed my head off, Teeny braided Heidi’s hair. I always loved having someone play with my hair when I was younger. How about you? Are you ever too old for that? Wait a minute? Why didn’t anyone braid my hair?

After the heartbreaking loss to Oregon, we ran down to the Thurman Cafe, which was Julie’s choice since we were celebrating her birthday! I’d been many years ago and Julie had gotten carry-out before, but Heidi and Teeny were first timers. Although they told us it would be a 40-minute wait, we were seated in about 25 minutes. I had a Blue Cheese Burger, Heidi went with a Coney dog (not the 1-pounder), Christine had a Three Cheese Burger and Julie went with the Hawaiian Burger. We all abstained from additional cocktails, except for Heidi, because we were all still slightly looped from the Green Tea Shots.

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Unfortunately, it takes a while to get the food, but the burgers are so huge that it makes perfect sense as to why it takes so long. I mean – how long must it take to cook a burger that’s as thick as my arm? They were so massive, I actually took mine off the bun – which I often do, anyway. Too much bread and all that jazz 🙂 All in all, we were there around 2 hours.

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Thurman Cafe is a staple in the Columbus area, so I’d certainly recommend a visit if you haven’t been. It is a really small place and there’s not a lot of seating, so don’t go hungry. In all likelihood, you’ll be waiting a while. As we went to leave, there were literally at least 20-30 people sitting outside waiting to get in. Of course, at least 10 of them were Ducks fans! Ugh! As if I needed a reminder of the heartbreaking loss. To utter Julie’s favorite phrase – *u*k a Dirty Duck!

After lunch, we headed back to Heidi’s place so Julie could open her presents. She got lots of goodies – a new thermal mug, cute outfits and a tie-dye bucket hat. We snacked on Heidi’s fruit pizza- an oldie but always a goodie! We hung out back for a while, playing ‘I Say, You Say’ – Teeny and I kept turning it into a raunchy version, with the word ‘penith’ being flung about a lot 🙂 What can I say? We were a little tipsy, so there was lots of giggles, lots of sex talk and lots of bad words – that might have been mostly me 🙂

All in all, it was a great, relaxing September girls’ day – except for the Buckeye loss – that was NOT, in any way, shape or form, relaxing.

I’m curious, what are your favorite things to do in the fall? Stay tuned for my next update – I’ll be sharing my fall bucket list full of the must do things on my list every season.

Until next time, make lots of memories with your gal pals, document those memories and share lots of bestie secrets! And seriously, go Bucks! You know the saying – win, lose or die, I’m a Buckeye til’ the day I die!